


4,400 Feet Above Sea Level

by aurora_australis



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Gen, MFMM Year of Quotes, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 00:59:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14581461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurora_australis/pseuds/aurora_australis
Summary: Coffee and introspection at 4,400 feet.





	4,400 Feet Above Sea Level

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the MFMM Year of Quotes -- May Challenge.
> 
> Inspired by the quote: “We should meet in another life, we should meet in air, me and you.” - Sylvia Plath
> 
> Many thanks to Fire_Sign for the very helpful beta read.

It was like witnessing creation itself.

Darkness and cold and shadow chased away by light and heat and color - reds and yellows bold as lava and just as relentless. The world transformed from nothingness. Incredible. Miraculous. No wonder it was hard to breathe.

Of course the reduced oxygen levels didn’t help.

Phryne stood at the summit and took it all in. She had seen sunrises before, of course, from locations across the globe. She had seen them from hotel rooms in Spain, and stakeouts in London, and battlefields in France. She had even seen them from mountains before. But this, this was different.

Phryne Fisher was currently 4,400 feet above sea level and everything was different.

Standing at the top of Ben Nevis, Phryne looked around for the first time since dawn had started its assault on the sky. There were about a dozen women within 30 feet of her, but all of them were silent, each in their own little world. With a smile, Phryne settled back down on the blanket she had laid out when they first reached the top, poured herself a cup of coffee from her thermos, and returned to her thoughts. Why, she wondered, did she suddenly feel so different?

It wasn’t her first time in Scotland. It wasn’t even her first time on Ben Nevis. She had attempted the climb once before, but had been sidetracked about halfway up the mountain by a beautiful young man from St Andrews, who had thankfully lived up to the divinity his hometown alluded to. Unfortunately, the end of her encounter has coincided with a change in the weather and she had been forced to turn back to Fort William. Circumstances had worked against all her subsequent attempts to return, but she had always intended to make the trek again. So when the Edinburgh chapter of the Adventuress Club had invited her on this nighttime climb, she had jumped at the opportunity. 

They had begun the long, arduous uphill trek just after sunset, their path lit only by the moon and their torches. Phryne was thankful for the additional manmade help; she had the eyes of a fox, but the path was still challenging and there was no reason to be deliberately foolish. They had been guided up and up and up for hours, reaching the summit shortly before dawn. The women had all taken a seat and begun conversing as they waited for the sun to rise, but their convivial chatter had stilled at the first sign of light: by Phryne's estimates no one had spoken in at least fifteen minutes. She looked around and noticed for the first time the old observatory behind her. She laughed quietly, composing her next letter to Jack in her mind - “The view was magnificent! My only regret is that I’m _still_ not a telescope - imagine what I could have seen then!” Poor man. He was ever so much fun to tease. Her smile grew wider and slightly more wicked at the thought.

The view _was_ magnificent though. But that was expected and not at all an answer as to why she felt different. And anyway this was hardly her first time in higher altitudes. She was an aviatrix, for goodness sake, she excelled in the air! Turning back around, Phryne took a large sip of coffee and, ever the detective, examined the scene in front of her in hopes of discovering a clue.

Watching the sun grow higher in the sky and the landscape open up before her, she took it all in, observant as ever. Her eyes followed paths of snow - because _of course_ there was snow, even in June - down the mountain until they became proper rivers. She studied the craggy rock formations and the trees, the path they’d taken up and the town below. She took it all in and was amazed. This high up she’d expected to see the world as she did from her plane - dots and general shapes, no features. But that wasn’t true at all. She could see _detail_ from the summit. 4,400 feet up and she was still very much connected to the world below her. 

As she idly fingered the swallow pin affixed to her scarf, Phryne thought about her first attempt at this climb and considered the woman she’d been then. The woman who didn’t believe in roots or family. Would she have appreciated this view in the same way? Phryne doubted it. That version of herself would have no doubt thought it spectacular, but she would have missed so much. The woman she was now was seeing everything - colors in the sky she knew Dot would want to replicate with her knitting and ecology that Jane would want to study. This version was meeting incredible women who Mac would love to hear about, and learning new things she couldn’t wait to share with Jack. It all made her a little glad she hadn’t completed the ascent the first time.

Oh Phryne, she thought, you ARE getting sentimental. The old her would have hated that. The current version was more bemused than anything else. She now firmly believed sentimentality had its place as long as you didn’t dwell there.

Well in for a penny, in for a pound, she thought, allowing herself to be sentimental for a moment longer - the location was practically begging for it after all. She briefly wondered what would happen if she met her younger self today, what she would say up here in the clouds. How would she explain the woman she had become? She thought about what had brought her here, the path she had taken. Not the all night hike up the mountain, but the longer journey, the life she had lived over the last decade. It had all made a difference of course, but she realized that the biggest changes had occurred recently, in Melbourne. Her first and current home. Melbourne was where she had been so happy with Janey. Returning, finding her sister at last, and finally, _finally_ allowing herself to remember those times for the gifts they were had filled her with a sense of peace. Time and distance from the war was also helping, as time and distance were wont to do. For heaven’s sake, 10 plus years and 10,000 plus miles from her life in Paris she was even considering another long term romantic relationship, which would frankly be appalling if it weren’t so damn appealing.

She thought about her journey back to England. Her attempts to help mend her family. Sentimentally indeed. She thought about the last eight months, working on her biological family’s finances while still managing to live life to the fullest. She thought about the stacks of letters and telegrams she had on her desk in London from her found family, excited for her adventures but equally excited for her return. She thought about the stacks of letters and telegrams she’d sent in reply, which didn’t dwell on longing but did say she _would_ return. She watched the sunrise and thought about it all, considered the evidence, and came to a very satisfying conclusion.

The woman who had attempted this climb almost ten years ago loved to soar. She loved the thrill and the danger and the way it made her feel alive. The Phryne currently admiring the last few moments of a sunrise atop Ben Nevis loved to soar as well. She didn’t think she’d ever stop and she certainly didn’t want to. But right now, on this mountain in this moment, she was in the clouds and on the ground. And _that_ was the difference; she was still soaring but now she was grounded. Grounded by family and responsibilities, grounded by a past she wasn’t running from and a future she was excited to explore. And it all made the view from the top that much better. 

Phryne finished her coffee, stood up and took a deep breath. She commited the vistas to memory and offered up a silent thanks for the sense of adventure she had been born with that led her into such situations time and time and again. And then she made a decision.

It was time to go home.

**Author's Note:**

> Ben Nevis, in Scotland, is the highest mountain in the British Isles, standing at 1,345 metres (4,411 ft) above sea level. The summit, which is the collapsed dome of an ancient volcano, features the ruins of an observatory which was continuously staffed between 1883 and 1904. You really can hike up overnight to watch the sunrise at the summit and yes, please! :-)
> 
> Oh and Great Britain didn’t adopt the metric system until 1965 - thank you Fire_Sign for this important information!


End file.
